Verax Biomedical closes $12m funding round

Verax Biomedical, a Marlborough-based diagnostics company, said that it has completed a $12 million financing as it looks to develop an improved version of its bacterial contamination test.

According to many studies, bacterial contamination in platelets is the greatest infectious threat to the safety of blood transfusions. Verax claims its product, the Platelet PGD test, is “a significant advance” when it comes to detecting bacterial contamination.

As regulators focus on this issue, demand is increasing for such tests from both blood banks and hospitals, the company said in a press release. More than 100 hospitals in the US and Europe, particularly those that specialize in treating cancer, have already adopted the Verax Platelet PGD Test as a safety measure for their platelet inventory.

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“We are very grateful for the on-going support of our current investors,” company chief executive James Lousararian said in a statement. “This additional financing will permit Verax to aggressively capitalize on the opportunity present with our existing product, and it sets the stage for the introduction of our improved test that will offer significant advances in performance and ease of use.”